


Poor Clarence

by gersaint



Category: Richard III - Shakespeare
Genre: Ghosts, strange conversations in tents
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-15
Updated: 2016-01-15
Packaged: 2018-05-14 03:13:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,021
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5727592
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gersaint/pseuds/gersaint
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"You know, I couldn’t sleep at all that night. I had these dreams, Richard. Dreams of water, dreams of drowning."</p>
            </blockquote>





	Poor Clarence

_Let me sit heavy on thy soul to-morrow!_  
_I, that was wash’d to death with fulsome wine,_  
_Poor Clarence, by thy guile betrayed to death!_  
_To-morrow in the battle think on me,_  
_And fall thy edgeless sword: despair, and die!  
_ – William Shakespeare, from _Richard III_

George appeared in the tent, sitting on a barrel with his legs crossed. His hair was wet and clung to his face. He looked as if he’d just been bathing in a forest spring; and, having washed off the dirt and grime of the day, was now sitting on the bank, sharing light-as-air words with Isabel and with his brothers. He looked like he did when all had been well. When all had been as it should be.

But it was not water (clear as his voice and icy as his eyes) that was running off his body in little rivers, carving paths through strands of his hair and between the veins on his hands. It was wine. Red wine. The blood of the sea. George was an odd picture drawn in black and white; the wine washing his graceful, effortlessly-lanky body was the only color on him. His eyes had been so light in life that now, in his colorlessness, it was as though he had no pupils at all. There was a smile on his face. It showed all of his white teeth. Richard cringed to see that smile.

“Richard,” said George. His voice was muffled and distorted, like that of a man underwater. “Why do you start so? It’s just me. George. Your brother.”

Richard gave no answer. Only sat up straighter in his uncomfortable bed (it was making his back hurt like Hell). George smiled another smile. A tight-lipped smile. His lips were thin and gray. A trickle of red wine snaked down to his mouth, and he licked it off.

“Don’t tell me you don’t recognize your own brother. Don’t tell me – don’t tell me you’re _scared_.”

Richard shook his head. He knew this would happen: he knew George would come. And he said so.

George sighed. “You _knew_.” It was not entirely a question and not entirely a statement. It was a phrase with a raised eyebrow – but George did not raise his eyebrows. He only brushed his slick, beautiful hair out of his eyes.

The wine pooled on the grass.

“Why did you do it?” George asked.

“Is – is that a real question?” Richard had an irritating habit of answering questions with questions. “I could never tell with you. That’s why I was ever wary around you, even though I knew you were a fool.”

“Is that any way to talk about your older brother, Dickon?”

Richard flinched. “Don’t call me that. Not any more.”

“Why did you do it?” George asked again, not sounding impatient in the least. Spirits had time. The living did not. That was why they were called _quick_.

“You were too far ahead of me. That is all.”

George nodded slowly. “But Edward never liked or trusted me. Never. Who would trust false, fleeting, perjured Clarence?”

The ghost chuckled, and Richard could not help but join in for a sweet moment. They had laughed together this way when they had watched Edward talk to Lady Grey for the first time. It had been sincere, brotherly. But even then, it had not been without worry.

“Edward had it in him to forgive,” said Richard.

“Aye, but not to forget.”

“That is true.”

“Was Edward very upset when he heard the news?” asked George.

“News of what?” (Richard knew perfectly well of what.)

“That I was dead.”

“What a childish question,” said Richard, trying to scoff, but failing to keep the regret from his voice.

“But was he?” George pressed. He’d uncrossed his legs, and was now sitting on the barrel with his legs dangling down. He looked like a child.

“He was.”

“And?”

“They say it was what finally killed him,” said Richard. “Although,” he added, “I say it was probably the feasting.”

“Did he repent it? My death, I mean – not the feasting. I’m sure he didn’t repent that.”

“No. He cursed everyone else. And then he died. Elizabeth wept us all a rainstorm.”

George nodded again and gave a short laugh. “You know, I couldn’t sleep at all that night. I had these dreams, Richard. Dreams of water, dreams of drowning. And so, then, you had me drowned in a barrel of Malmsey. I don’t even like the damned stuff: you know that I much prefer Bordeaux. Was that on purpose?”

“The wine hadn’t even been my idea.”

“But did you admire it? The idea? The strange justice of it?” George asked.

“Yes,” said Richard. “I did.”

George finally seemed as if he had nothing else important to say. He played with a wet strand of his hair. “You always said that drink would be the death of me.”

He hopped off the barrel, limber as ever, making no sound as he stepped on the wine-wet grass, and bid Richard good night. “Sweet rest come to you, brother. You’ll sorely need it tomorrow.”

“Are you going to Richmond’s tent now?” asked Richard. “All the other spirits have, after they finished berating me.”

“But I wasn’t berating you. Was I?” George shrugged. “I suppose I’ll see the Welshman. Farewell, Richard, for a time.”

He lifted the tent-flap, but was gone from mortal sight before he passed entirely out of the tent. Richard glimpsed the moon, sitting there in the middle of the sky, as the softest gust of night air blew around him. He felt very sad all of a sudden. A crushing sort of grief pulsed behind his eyes. How shameful and womanish, he thought. He simply needed sleep, that was all. But he knew that he would not get it tonight, of course.

George said that he had not been able to sleep the night before he died – before he was killed. Was it not disappointing, Richard realized with a jolt, to pass one’s last night on Earth sleepless?

Richard rubbed his eyes and waited for the next ghost to show itself.


End file.
